Hot Off the Press! Enlazando Comunidades: El Juego De Herramientas

Western States Center is proud to release Enlazando Comunidades: El Juego De Herramientas, the Uniting Communities: The Toolkit in Spanish. Uniting Communities will help organizations working with Spanish speaking members and leaders have meaningful conversations about LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) issues. Enlazando Comunidades: El Juego De Herramientas is making its debut this week at the US Social Forum in Detroit, and will help organizations working with communities whose primary language is Spanish tackle these hard conversations in their first language.

We know language is a powerful tool—one that can be used to include or exclude both individuals and whole communities. We believe that having tools available bilingually helps strengthen the voices of traditionally excluded groups and promotes multi-racial and cross-cultural community participation. More importantly, it is critical for building a strong progressive movement.

Translation from English to Spanish with respect to issues of LGBTQ equality can be complicated. We recognized that terms used in the English Toolkit had been developed in the United States and in English, so the cultural and linguistic context was very different than the conversations currently taking place in Spanish-speaking countries and cultures. This made it even more crucial for us to work with translators who are rooted in the Latin@ and queer communities.  

Enlazando Comunidades: El Juego De Herramientas is made possible by funding from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. We are grateful to Roberto Tijerina and Tony Macias for providing their translation and cultural expertise and to Maria Gonzalez Mabbutt for her eagle-eyed copyediting skills. 

Click here to order Enlazando Comunidades: El Juego De Herramientas or Uniting Communities: The Toolkit.